Princess Tutu OVA: Chapter of the Girl
by LunaSphere
Summary: Their story is not quite finished yet: how Ahiru and Fakir move past the endings they find themselves in. All reviews welcome. AN: Ch. 7 now moved to its own multichapter story: Reactions: A Tale of Unmitigated Sap. I apologize for the confusion.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Chapter 1 now revised

Princess Tutu OVA: Chapter of the Girl

Their story is not quite finished yet: how Ahiru and Fakir move past the endings they find themselves in. All reviews welcome.

Disclaimer: I own neither Princess Tutu nor any of the quoted material.

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_Once upon a time, there was a prince who was "alive and had a human heart. He did not know what tears were, for he lived in the palace of Sans-Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but he never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about him was so beautiful. His courtiers called him the Happy Prince, and happy indeed he was, if pleasure be happiness. So he lived, and so he died. And now that he was dead they had made a statue out of him and set it up on a pedestal so high that he could see all the ugliness beyond the wall and all the misery of his city, and though the statue's heart was made of lead yet it could not help but weep." But this is not his story._ (quotation adapted from "The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde)

After his last term at Kinkan Academy for Ballet, something had happened to Fakir. He was brooding. Well, more than usual. Charon had said nothing at first, hoping that with some time and patience, Fakir would come out of his gloom on his own. It was almost visible some days, the dark aura that gravitated around him. But Charon had let it go on long enough. Summer had started, and Fakir had already missed the beginning of the new term and hadn't even mentioned the new year's tuition and fees.

With all this in mind, Charon determinedly took off his blacksmith's apron, dusted his hands, and went to find his adopted son. Not that it was much of search. Fakir was lazing by the pond, feeding the ducks and fishing as usual. What had gotten into the boy? Fishing! And that is why Charon decided to begin the confrontation in as direct a manner as possible.

"Fakir, is all this over a girl?"

Fakir, jerking back his fishing pole in shock, let fly a large mackerel. The force of the fish jumping to freedom made him lose his balance, causing him to hit his head against the dock with a resounding smack. Ahiru, who had been bobbing sleepily near the base of the dock, was doused into wakefulness by the mini-tsunami Fakir's fall creates.

Blushing awkwardly only in the way he can, Fakir stuttered out, "Wh—what are you talking about!"

But Charon going to the heart of the matter with the bluntness of a hammer striking hot iron on the anvil continues, "Don't expect me to believe that you've been doing nothing but fishing for the past 3 months just because you've developed a taste for trout! What about your studies? What about your future?"

The matter hadn't even occurred to Ahiru. "I hadn't even noticed. It seemed so natural that he'd be at the lake every day just like I was. But I guess Fakir's not a duck," she thought sheepishly.

Charon's complaints, however, had given Fakir the time he needed to regroup, "Oh, so that's what this is about. There's nothing for me to learn at that school."

"I may not understand what this is all about, but I can tell there's much more to it than you're letting on. You can't run from sorrow, Fakir. No matter how hard you try, it'll follow you more closely than your shadow," Charon replied. For all his harshness, Charon did love the boy and knew that applying force wasn't always the best way to solve a problem and so he spoke gently. Yet some part of him nagged that this knowledge was acquired not inherent. A vague memory of a girl in white and pink tutu soothing a painful, unending regret that did not even appear to be his own arose in his mind; for all that she dressed and comported herself like a princess, her face was as plain as a duck's, as plain as if she didn't even have the sense to wear her heart on her sleeves and instead had it shining out of her eyes, out of her very being.

Dismissing his irrelevant thoughts of the ballerina as some long-forgotten, nonsensical dream, Charon returned to the matter at hand, namely talking sense into Fakir. "I know you've been in a slump since your friends left for that ballet tour. But you've indulged in it long enough. If you're tired of ballet, there's plenty else out there you could be doing."

Staring at the gaps between the boards of the docks Fakir could only mutter in reply "So, what's wrong with coming here? I'm doing something."

"Fakir, I'm serious. This isn't healthy. All you do is mope, read, and fish. I don't care what you study, but I want you back in that school within a week. I don't like how you've cut yourself off. I hardly ever see you exchange even two words with anyone." Resting his hands on his son's shoulders, he added, "Look, maybe if you transfer to the Kinkan Academy for Writing you'll be more interested. At least think about it, Fakir," he said before walking off.

Peering up at Fakir from behind one of the supports of the dock, Ahiru realized the truth of Charon's words. After they'd freed Mytho and Rue from the Raven, Fakir said he'd try writing but a few weeks and failed attempts later, he had stopped going to the library and began spending all his time with her. "Charon's right! Fakir's stopped ballet and even writing. I guess I didn't even notice because it was nice to have his company," she thought. "He always brings that yummy bread and reads aloud to me. And they're always the kind of stories I like. He seems to understand me almost as if we've known each other forever. I mean I like the other ducks, but we just don't have much in common…they're kind of like Pique and Lilie, actually. Friendly, but we just don't see eye-to-eye. Almost like we live in different worlds. And I'm so bad at all this making nests, that I feel like I'm back in the apprentice ballet class again. I make as bad a duck as I do a ballerina. I don't even understand that Big Flight thing the other ducks keep talking about…"

While Ahiru had been busy derailing her train of thought, Fakir had resumed sitting on the dock with his feet dangling in the water, pretending not to care about what Charon had said. Charon was wrong. Fakir wasn't isolated. He talked to Ahiru all the time. Perhaps they didn't "exchange" words per se as Ahiru could no longer speak. Yet surely she understood him. She was all that mattered. He didn't need anyone else's company. Of course the princess would love the prince. But did anyone know that the knight would fall in love with her too?

It was ironic really, that he himself hadn't realized the fact earlier. On some level, he had known even back when he and Ahiru had been working together to save Mytho from the Raven's-blood drenched heart. But at that point Fakir had been too busy denying the fact to himself and he had known then that Ahiru's only concern had been her prince. Princess Tutu had a role to fulfill and it had nothing to do with the knight. Yet the girl Ahiru had somehow risen past the confines of Drosselmeyer's tale. Only Ahiru could do such a thing because only Ahiru had that mixture of courage, kindness, and determination.

Ironic that it had taken the absolute impossibility of his love for Ahiru for Fakir to realize its existence in the first place. It had happened a little day by day ever since she had turned back into a duck. He would bring down novels to the lake and read to her, both of them seemingly content and then inevitably he would be jerked out of that contentment by thoughtlessly saying something like "Ahiru, what do you think of—" and abruptly cutting himself off. He would never know now what she felt for this or that character, or what she found funny, or even what she thought about inconsequential things like the weather that day. Fakir was a certified introvert really, and he couldn't let something like this go without trying to understand _why_ it mattered so much to him what she thought. And then on the day he decided to never write again because the temptation to write about _her_ was too great, he knew. He loved her. It answered all the questions that had been plaguing him and at the same time brought a self-mocking smile to his face. When they had been inside Drosselmeyer's story, he could not tell her; now they were out of the story, she was a duck, and so he still could not tell her.

Rue, Mytho, and Uzura, as the only others who remembered a girl named Ahiru, were the only people whose presence he could stand and they were all traveling. He couldn't bring himself to care for the oblivious company of schoolmates and acquaintances. So perhaps Charon was a little right in thinking that Fakir had cut himself off from others.

But Charon didn't understand everything. Fakir hadn't stopped doing everything out of some adolescent angsting fit. Charon had no right to speak like he knew all of the answers. Charon hadn't been the one to find Drosselmeyer's journal buried among unsorted manuscripts in the library. It had been Fakir who had made that terrible discovery and it had been Fakir who had read with dawning horror as he watched Drosselmeyer himself change shape through those journal entries. The master-puppeteer had started out no more manipulative and psychotic than Fakir. It was as if Drosselmeyer had written himself into a different man.

The entire mess had started with nothing more than a desire to give happy endings. Seeing so much unhappiness in the everyday lives of the townspeople, Drosselmeyer had thought to secretly change their lots in life; to grant success to a gentle old shoemaker on the brink of poverty, to assign new constellations to star-crossed lovers, to mend tears in the social fabric of Kinkan Town without telling a soul. This, of course, convinced him to try a hand at patching his own life, an experience which taught him that a written happy ending felt hollow if you knew that it wasn't the way of things. And the girl who he had made fall in love with himself—one whose description suspiciously reminded Fakir of Edel—was no longer the girl he loved. He had written that she would love him and so she did, but changing her heart, had changed who she was. Having twisted his own story, he could do nothing more than twist the stories of those around him.

And just as he had as he left the library all those months ago, Fakir tried to convince himself now that that kind of power was best left alone. That it would be better to not write at all than to warp the very shape of the world with the best of intentions.

Yet for all that he was irritated by Charon's words, something in them struck a chord within Fakir. Just as Charon had said, he had not been able hide from his sorrow. The Raven was vanquished, Mytho was safe, and even Rue was tolerable. Kinkan Town had returned to its true shape as had Ahiru. That last transformation, however, had not been for the best. And afraid that he would follow Drosselmeyer's footsteps, Fakir had put writing aside. Fakir wouldn't deny that he had toyed with the idea of turning Ahiru back into a girl. Hell, he'd even considered turning himself into a duck. Yet he feared that in changing Ahiru's form, he would irreparably alter the girl he loved, that he would turn into the new puppeteer of Kinkan Town.

Charon only understood half the issue. Fakir was drawn to the written word for its own sake and that very predilection scared him. Had it started for Drosselmeyer that way? A simple passion for reading stories and then a naïve interest in trying to write them? And then the beguiling discovery of the power of his words? Fear was driving Fakir as much as sorrow was and trapped between the two, Fakir had decided to do nothing. For nothing would come of nothing. (_1_)

And yet, nothing would come of nothing. Fakir didn't wish to manipulate reality through his writing, but that didn't mean he wanted things to stay as they were. Perhaps there was no harm in learning as ignorance too could be dangerous. He would study and see if changing Ahiru back was even possible and he certainly wouldn't do anything without asking her first; but there could be nothing wrong with simply finding out. Perhaps he would follow Charon's advice and enroll in Kinkan Academy for Writing after all.

So absorbed was he in his ruminations, Fakir hadn't even realized that he had walked home. He stood at the door of his cottage and could hear Charon pounding away at horseshoes in the adjacent smithy. He couldn't believe he'd left without telling Ahiru. Well, he would return early tomorrow morning and let her know why he was reenrolling in Kinkan Academy.

Fakir wasn't the only one roused by Charon's prodding. Just as Fakir had made a resolve that day, so too would Ahiru. And just as he had failed to communicate his decision to her so lost was he in conflicting desires, she too would leave him in ignorance. Granted it always took time to get the wheels in Ahiru's head turning, but once they started, nothing could hold her back if it concerned any of the people she cared about—in fact, nothing could hold her back even if it concerned complete strangers. All she needed to be pushed into thought and subsequently into action was to realize that someone might be unhappy.

And that she hadn't realized until Charon had spoken that Fakir was unhappy was unforgivable. When she had seen the sadly smiling Mytho dancing by the lake, she had known at once that he was unhappy and wanted nothing more than for him to smile truly. She had not even known the prince then, and yet she had seen his unhappiness. To not have seen it until someone pointed it out in Fakir, who was her closest friend, was awful. She had been so selfishly happy that Fakir had chosen to spend time with her even if she was only a duck that she hadn't noticed that even his smiles were tinged with sorrow until today. She didn't know why he was unhappy, yet even more so than with Mytho, she wanted to return Fakir's smile to him.

But she was only a duck. Where were the creepy devil's-bargain-offering Drosselmeyer types when you needed them? Well then, the only way to solve this would be to turn back into a girl, even if she couldn't turn back into Princess Tutu, figure out what was wrong with Fakir and fix it!

That couldn't be too hard. She'd even broken it down into three easy steps. Well, step number one couldn't be accomplished in Kinkan Town. There was no way to turn back into a girl here. Despite her earlier thoughts, she certainly didn't want to run into Drosselmeyer again even if he could make her human again. Well, maybe there was some magic something out there somewhere that could somehow change her back. She would just have to go out into the wide world and explore. She would definitely make Fakir smile again. So thinking, Ahiru flapped out of the pond and began flying towards walls of the town.

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_To be continued..._

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(_1_) adapted from Shakespeare's _King Lear_

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	2. Chapter 2

Princess Tutu OVA: Chapter of the Girl

Their story is not quite finished yet. How Ahiru and Fakir move past the endings they find themselves in. All reviews welcome.

Disclaimer: I own neither Princess Tutu nor any of the quoted material.  
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Episode 2 

_Once upon a time, there was a woman who loved a man who scorned her. So "she took a quince, and in that fruit she gave him a potion, thinking that she could force him to love her; as if there were, in this world, herbs, enchantments, or words of power, sufficient to enchain free-will. __In an unfortunate moment the man ate the quince. Every remedy that could be thought of was tried; but although the physicians succeeded in curing the physical malady, they could not remove that of the mind; so that when he was at last pronounced cured, he was still afflicted with the strangest madness ever heard of. The unhappy man imagined that he was entirely made of glass" and could no longer bear a human touch. But this is neither his story nor hers. _(quotation adapted from "El licenciado vidriera" by Miguel de Cervantes, translated as "The Glass Graduate" )

When Fakir returned to the lake the next day, so early that there was still a haze of mist above the water and the surrounding trees seemed to dissolve into nothingness, Ahiru wasn't there. Well, perhaps he had come too early. She might be off sleeping wherever ducks sleep. While the rational part of his mind convinced him to head off to Kinkan Academy for now and look for her again in the afternoon, a small nagging part of him couldn't help but worry over her absence.

Kinkan Academy had paradoxically changed and not. Well, the more things change the more they stay the same. And it was certainly true of the school: uniformed students bustled about the grounds oblivious to the world beyond schedules, studies, and gossip, as if nothing had changed, as if a girl named Ahiru had never existed and never vanished.

The school board was all too happy to readmit Fakir into Kinkan Academy and the Writing School did not even demand he make up the missed classwork because, as they eagerly fawned over him, there was no need to impose restrictions on a "gifted and driven student" such as himself, who would always be "an asset to the school's considerable reputation." Fakir showed the appropriate disdain for their drivel and left for the main building of the Writing School.

Its structure was essentially the same as that of the Ballet School, but instead of rooms intended for dancing, the building consisted of lecture halls, lounges, studies, and libraries. His teacher, a Professor Felix Felidae was strangely reminiscent of his old ballet instructor—of course he was human and not feline—but his mannerisms were oddly familiar: when discussing the actual topic he displayed intelligence, yet he also managed to bring up marriage several times over the course of the lecture even though it was entirely irrelevant to the lecture. He would then proceed to become agitated by it and break out into flustered chain-smoking, which at least that was a significant improvement on licking his fur clean. But really, the entire sequence was too stupid and bizarre.

Professor Felidae's idiocy aside, he began the class with a rather well-planned lecture: " 'Imagine a painter who wanted to combine a horse's neck with a human head, and then clothe a miscellaneous collection of limbs with various kinds of feathers, so that what started out at the top as a beautiful woman ended in a hideously ugly fish. If you were invited, as friends, to the private viewing, could you help laughing?' That my dear students, is the invaluable advice Horace gives us in his inspired text _Ars Poetica_. Resist the temptation to put in everything that appeals to you—too much embellishment and you will end up with mockery rather than magnificence. Now, ladies and gentleman, let us look at the finer points of characterizations and the various methods great masters of the past have used to achieve varied effects…"

While Felidae continued, Fakir's mind was snagged by Horace's image of the chimerical character and he thought back to Drosselmeyer's journal once more. His own happy ending having become a farce, Drosselmeyer had developed a taste for tragedy and his first attempt to indulge in it had been the animals. In an attempt to spice up his stories, Drosselmeyer tried merging animal and human in personality and in body. He claimed that there was something in that struggle between animalistic instinct and human reasoning that resulted in the most delightful sort of tragic heroes. Tragedy and tragic heroes, he bragged, were like wine and a seasoned epicurean savored the subtle mingling of distinct flavors. A boor would be entertained by the kind of paltry tragedy where unfortunate events kept raining down on some poor soul; but a true connoisseur relished tragedy that centered on a character pulled one way by his own animal passions and another by his unattainable human aspirations because the finest tragedy came from within. In Tutu Drosselmeyer had hoped to bring that torturous inner conflict to its "most divine heights." Yet for Ahiru, Fakir knew, the conflict of animalistic passion and human idealism had nothing whatsoever to do with it—it was simply Ahiru through and through. Her ability to give up her very self so that her prince and her friends could be happy had nothing to do with _what_ she was and everything to do with _who_ she was. Everything about her—

"Mr. Fakir, are you listening?" glowered Felidae as he towered before Fakir's seat. His black-purple hair standing on end in agitation, and his brown eyes, so light as to almost be golden, widened as he shrieked, "Or, perhaps, are you daydreaming about your sweetheart? Maybe even your m-m-marriage!"

Now it was Fakir's turn to stammer. "Of course not! I-I have no idea what you're talking about!" But he recovered his reserve quickly enough. After all, he had an image to maintain. Glancing quickly at the writing on the board, Fakir lied through his teeth with such confidence that it was hard to call him on it. "I was merely listening to you explain how Cervantes uses parody to further his characterization."

Felidae shuffled off towards a window, smoking furiously for a minute or so before returning to the front of the class, "Ahem. Well, then, let us continue…"

While Fakir managed to focus on the lectures after that embarrassing interlude, he hurried out of the building as soon as classes finished. It was almost an undignified pace for him, but he had not gone so long without seeing Ahiru since the Raven had been defeated and he could not help the feeling of unease about her absence that morning.

And his unease was all too sadly realized once he reached the lake although he tried to keep at bay for as long as possible even then. At first he tried to mask the rising panic within him with anger. That idiot! Where could she possibly be? She didn't even have the brains of a duck! It would be just like her to try to migrate in the middle of summer! Did she even know what migration _was_? And of course, now it was his responsibility to hunt her down and make sure the fool got out of whatever scrape she no doubt had got herself in!

With an impressive scowl set on his face, Fakir fumed silently as he looked about for Ahiru. There were a handful of ducks near the shore, but no Ahiru in sight. He even bailed out the weather-beaten dingy moored to the dock and rowed out to the center of the lake to make sure she wasn't floating elsewhere. He searched the underbrush, he circled the lake on foot, and he even tried asking the other ducks which only left him feeling foolish. They merely lunged at him quacking noisily, thinking he had brought them treats. And then he realized the horrible truth of it.

She had left because of him.

He had walked away from the lake yesterday without even talking to her, without explaining anything, without even saying "I'll be back tomorrow" like he did each evening. She must hate him by now, she must be angry. But Ahiru, even at her angriest, would worry, because she was just that soft-hearted. Maybe she had gone to search for him when he hadn't shown up as usual.

Fakir rushed home, hoping she'd gone to look for him there. Of course the most likely place to find him wouldn't occur to her Fakir thought uncharitably once he failed to find her there; it was his own perverse way of keeping alive the hope that she wasn't in danger, that she hadn't left him forever. Well, he would be the personification of logic he decided as he sat down to make up missing posters. Recognizing the futility of going around asking "Have you seen a duck…" he dug out some old sketches he'd made of her back when he had given up on writing as much too hazardous but before he'd taken up fishing. Looking at his misshapen drawings, he remembered why he had given up sketching in the first place. Well there was no helping it. He added a much more accurate written description below the countless clumsy pictures he had drawn of her.

He searched about town and even checked near the Kinkan Academy for Ballet, putting up the missing posters as he went along. The end of his fruitless wandering found him at the " Riddle Riddle Bridge." Although the curious shard of Mytho's heart was no longer there to haunt it, the bridge still managed to retain its reputation. Perhaps something in the townspeople remembered a time before their lives had been so magically healed.

Fakir had walked miles by now, looking for her within the walls of Kinkan Town, and yet it had not been enough. The restless nervousness within him was too great. In this, writing and reading could be no match for ballet. How he wished now to dance himself into exhaustion, to silence his heart by turning and leaping until his body ached for mercy from his mind, until his mind satisfied with the suffering his body relented and allowed him to fall into the comforting arms of sleep, of unconsciousness.

As it was, Fakir did not dare to sleep; perchance to dream. (_1_) His thoughts were of the darkest kind now. Tonight he would surely find himself entertaining a veritable host of nightmares.

Fakir's thoughts were as murky as the water he looked down into while leaning against the side of the bridge. Fakir was tempted then. More strongly than he ever had been before. He could take out quill and parchment, he could deliberately set out to change his own story, to change hers. Yet if he were to do so, he would never know if she loved him of her own free-will or if something in his words had made her do so. He would become like Drosselmeyer, a husk of a man. He too had loved once, a girl named Lede. He had loved her innocence, her childish inability to see past herself and her own desires, her vivacity and charm. Yet after writing her into loving only him, she had lost all her innocence, all her desires, all her charm. She had turned into a creature that was not even a shadow of the woman he had loved. Reading Drosselmeyer's account, Fakir had wondered if perhaps this had been Lede's rebellion, a passive resistance to Drosselmeyer's attempt to shape her. Whatever the reasons behind her behavior, ultimately, it had resulted in Drosselmeyer writing her out of the story. Fakir had been so chilled by Drosselmeyer's revelations that even now he remembered the exact words in the journal: "I wrote for her to 'wander the world at her will,' and so generously gave her back that will I first took. But even after regaining it, she was entirely changed in personality, different now from the innocent girl she had been and different to from the mindless drone she had become, and so her will too was now an entirely unfathomable thing. Ah, what tragedy!"

And then in a fit of loneliness years after he had rid of her, Drosselmeyer had created the puppet Edel in her image. Apparently he had tried to recreate her hair, her dress, her voice as much as possible and if his own claims in the journal were to be believed, Drosselmeyer had succeeded. And just as the woman, Fakir thought on reading that particular entry, the puppet too had chafed at her marionette strings and she too paid for it with her life. Such irony. Yet also like the woman Lede, the puppet Edel had chosen her own fate in the end—she had chosen to sacrifice herself for Ahiru and at the high price of destroying her old self, she had created a new one with free will in the impulsive Uzura. It was death in a way and both had chosen it. When their hands had been forced, both Lede and Edel had killed themselves to be reborn. Would Ahiru too be forced to make such a choice if Fakir now wrote her story?

All he knew was that she was missing, that she could be in danger and while he had the power to save her, did he have the right to do so? And if she were injured, if she were to die because he had failed to act? Yet if he saved her and changing her was the price, would she ever forgive him? Would she remain herself enough to even forgive? Should he gamble all and write her end? Or should he believe in her and let her live her life while he waited, the fixed foot of a compass, his firmness making her circle just, making her journey end where it begun? (_2_)

While his mind wavered between writing her story and letting her find her own way, his footsteps had brought him back to the lake. He had never lingered there much past dusk as Charon always expected him for dinner and he respected the man too much to deny him those few hours of his time that Charon asked for.

It was full dark now. As Fakir looked at the inky blue-black water, the light from the stars danced on the gentle waves lapping against the supports of the dock, and the reflected moon shifted petal by petal by petal, like a full-blown rose on the surface of her lake. Something of peace, something of her, stole into his soul in that moment and so he decided to do the best he could do—to believe in Princess Tutu, no, to trust in his Ahiru.

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_To be continued...

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(_1_) adapted from Shakespeare's _Hamlet_

(_2_) adapted from Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I would like to thank anyone who has read this story so far, but particularly those who have taken the time to review (especially the anonymous reviewers I can't contact individually--Akaina, Inubaki, and CheeseMonkey8). Thanks to all my reviewers for their kind comments and helpful suggestions. I look forward to hearing your opinions on this chapter.

Princess Tutu OVA: Chapter of the Girl

Their story is not quite finished yet: how Ahiru and Fakir move past the endings they find themselves in. All reviews welcome.

Disclaimer: I own neither Princess Tutu nor any of the quoted material.  
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Episode 3 

_Once upon a time there was a man who loved a woman who would only love him for a red rose. " 'No red rose in all my garden!' he despaired. 'Ah, on what little things does happiness depend!' A nightingale overhearing him, took pity on the lover. A red rose she knew, must be built out of music by moonlight and stained with your own heart's-blood. 'Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,' cried the Nightingale, 'and Life is very dear to all. Yet Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?' But the woman refused the man anyway, saying 'Everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers;' and the man carelessly threw the rose which ran red with the nightingale's life-blood into the gutter." Now just whose story is this: the man's, the woman's, or the bird's? _(quotation adapted from "The Nightingale and the Rose" by Oscar Wilde)

Meanwhile, Ahiru had been keeping herself busy. That first day, she spent flying as far as she could past the borders of Kinkan Town, but soon she found that having never flown great distances before, not two hours had gone by before her wings began to ache. Well, there was nothing to it but to land on that winding path through the forests below her and walk the rest of the way.

Sighing in relief as soon as she touched ground, Ahiru folded her wings and happily began waddling along through the woods. She even decided to sing to make the time pass faster:

sore wa yashiku hageshii nagare ne _quack quack_  
dokomade tsudsuku rabarinsu… _quack_  
…watashi wa yukou _quack_  
nigishimeru yume _quack quack_

That is the dream I clasp  
On the gently fierce current,  
However far this labyrinth may continue…  
…I shall go on (_1_)

Quacking along to "Morning Grace," Ahiru walked for several more hours before realizing that she hadn't seen any nearby bodies of water where she could spend the night and she certainly hadn't found any source of food either. The sun was setting and she had neither food nor shelter.

"But if I go back now," she thought to herself, "Fakir will just call me an idiot…that insensitive jerk…and besides, if I return now, nothing will have changed. I haven't seen Fakir really smile since we defeated the Raven. As a duck, I can't even talk to him, forget about finding out what's bothering him! I have to keep going, so that Fakir will smile, because if he can't, then I don't think I can either…"

Lost in her own thoughts, without even realizing it, Ahiru fell asleep in the middle of the road, her sore wings spread out beneath her beak, her tired legs collapsed behind her, and her tail sticking up in the air.

Early the next morning, Ahiru was nudged out of her exhaustion-induced sleep by the steady tread of footsteps, and a woman's voice exclaiming "Oh my! You poor thing, you must be freezing!" As the woman gently scooped the duck up from the ground, Ahiru came fully awake and tried weakly to free herself from the woman's kind but firm grip. But the woman's hands were unrelenting as she walked towards a little cottage off the side of the road, the whole while murmuring soothing words to Ahiru. "No need to worry, my dear, we'll have you right as rain in no time. Just running a slight fever I think…"

Before she knew it, Ahiru was being tucked into a bed in the smaller of the two rooms that made up the cottage. The sheets and curtains were done up in pastel shades of pink and an array of stuffed animals and rag dolls lined the window sill. It was evidently a young girl's room, but by the sun-bleached condition of the toys and the layer of dust on the old trunk at the foot of the bed, it looked as if the room's occupant had been missing for months.

As the woman arranged the sheets, Ahiru finally got a good look at her. Middle-aged with brown hair going to grey, a heavily lined face, and work-worn hands, the woman had an air of common sense and steady capability to her. And then she spoke.

"You know, dear, I'm surprised a girl your age was just walking about this forest by herself. My, you have such lovely blue eyes! You look a little like my own daughter. But really, you should be more careful. What must your parents be thinking? But you do have a willful look about you. Why are you so silent? Can't you speak? Oh my goodness, I hadn't realized you were mute! Do forgive me! You know, you remind me greatly of my daughter. She couldn't speak either ever since she was born. She could hear well enough though. Could you nod if you understand me, dear?"

At this small break in the woman's unending flow of words, Ahiru nodded emphatically, still unsure how to extract herself from this bizarre situation. The woman must be crazy! How could she think Ahiru was a girl with the webbed feet and feathers before her? Yet she was so caring and something about her was so sad that Ahiru felt she couldn't properly continue with her quest until she found a way to help this woman too.

"Do you understand sign language?"

As Ahiru shook her head "No," the woman looked absolutely appalled.

"You poor, dear thing! No way to communicate at all! Well, we'll have you signing in no time! Oh, listen to me jabbering away and I haven't even introduced myself properly to you yet. My name is Annie, dear, and I live in this cottage by myself. My daughter Helen lived here with me, but then she left a year ago and I haven't seen her since. She used to say she wanted to see the wide world, but I told her time and again that it wasn't safe. What if she got lost or couldn't find anyone who would understand her? But then she just ran off on her own…You really do look just like her. Anyway, I do some light farming and keep a bit of livestock and trade to get whatever else I need. Nothing fancy, but a comfortable life. It used to suit us just fine, Helen and me. But then she left. You have the same eyes as Helen, you know. But you look tired now, poor dear. Why don't you rest now, and I'll wake you in a bit, just as soon as I finish making a stew to warm you right up."

Well, Ahiru could already begin to see why Helen might have run away! Ahiru was hardly an invalid, but the woman seemed determined to nurse her back to health even if Ahiru was perfectly fine. Granted she was tired from traveling all day yesterday, a little weak from hunger, and a little dizzy from the fever…well, perhaps, Ahiru wasn't as fine as she'd like to think she was. Despite her overbearing manner and even if she was confused and thought Ahiru was girl who resembled her daughter rather than a duck, Annie was so concerned over her welfare that Ahiru could not help but feel grateful to the woman.

Having nothing else to do, Ahiru rested in bed and thought. "I wonder what Fakir is doing right now. I hope he listened to Charon and went back to school. He doesn't need to turn into any more of a lone-wolf than he already is! It's strange but I already miss him. It was different with Mytho, wasn't it? I mean I missed him too when he disappeared—and boy did he disappear a lot! what with Princess Claire and the Raven and all that—but I hardly knew him well enough as a person to miss his company. But I really did love Mytho, didn't I? Then why—"

"Now, now, dear, you should really be sleeping! Just like, my Helen you are! Didn't listen to a word I say. How will you ever get better if you don't listen, hmmm? Enough of that now I suppose, I brought you some stew for lunch."

And then, without asking Ahiru, the woman proceeded to spoon-feed her. Really, that was a bit much! Well of course, as Ahiru didn't have hands she couldn't feed herself, but still! This was so embarrassing.

Finally setting aside the empty bowl and spoon, Annie said "Now, dear, I think it's time for your very first lesson in sign language. Let's begin with the alphabet and we'll work our way up from there."

Ahiru resisted at first. There was nothing more she wanted than to be on her way, but Annie would not take no for an answer. She kept repeating the same hand signs over and over until Ahiru did them herself. "Just like teaching Helen," the woman muttered more than once under her breath. The lessons weren't easy for Ahiru by any means. For one thing, she didn't have fingers.

After hours of practicing, Annie finally rose from the chair by the bed she had occupied since lunch. "The form of your signs is a little clumsy, Helen, but it's still understandable. We'll practice more after dinner."

Ahiru didn't quite catch the rest of her words, so surprised was she at being called Helen. This _wasn't_ happening. This _was not_ happening to her! Annie couldn't possibly think Ahiru was her daughter! "Oh, how do I always get into these messes?" Ahiru moaned. By then, Annie had already left the room. Not that Ahiru could explain anything to her. She still couldn't speak! But maybe with sign language? Well, then there was nothing to it, she would just have to learn.

Being at Annie's certainly gave Ahiru plenty of time to straighten out her tangled thoughts. It wasn't that Ahiru wasn't a good thinker; she just never really tried to pick apart her own feelings. But now with endless free time as Annie let her "recover," Ahiru had nothing to do but think and rethink everything that had ever happened to her. "I think I did love Mytho, but it wasn't real love. Or rather, it wasn't romantic love. Well, maybe I did have a little crush on him too. Who wouldn't?" But Ahiru hadn't really loved Mytho, had she? Love, after all was supposed to be unconditional. And she, just like Mytho's own heart had betrayed him because once he had become steeped in the Raven's blood, she like his own heart couldn't recognize him anymore. It had been Rue who had loved him in spite of everything. And Ahiru, well Ahiru had only really wanted to help him, had only really wanted to return his smile.

"Oh, what was that word? Alter-something. Altrisic? Altruistic! That was it. My love for Mytho was just altruistic. See, I know some big words. I bet that would surprise Fakir, the jerk! Always calling me an idiot like that. But now that I think about it, when he says that, it almost sounds like he's trying to be nice and just doesn't know how; it's kind of sad, really, that he doesn't know…" Odd, how her thoughts always managed to circle back to Fakir.

Annie returned a few hours later carrying a plate for Ahiru. "Here's your dinner, Helen. Some nice roast duck, mash potatoes and a little salad."

Had she said duck? Had Annie really said duck? Ahiru turned green at the very thought of it. "Is she making plans to eat me next?" Ahiru thought frantically. "No. I made that mistake with Ebine-san and I was really wrong. Annie must just have made a mistake. After all, she thinks I'm a girl! She thinks I'm her daughter! She doesn't know she's asking a duck if she wants to eat duck for dinner!"

Despite the fact her understanding was so clearly disconnected from reality, Annie was a shrewd observer and from the horrified look on Ahiru's face gathered something was wrong. "What's wrong, Helen? I asked at lunch if you wanted duck for dinner. Weren't you listening? Really, dear! Don't you like duck anymore, Helen? You used to love it. Well I suppose your tastes have changed. I'm just glad you've come back to me. After all, I know what's best for you, dear. There's still some soup left over from lunch if you want instead. Now, you can only have it if you can go through all the signs you learned today!"

Ahiru realized then that the sooner she learned sign language the sooner she could extract herself from this situation by explaining away the entire mess. "And I'll be able to speak with Fakir again! Just talking though, that won't be enough. I really need to turn back to a girl. Even if I can speak to him, I can't really help him as a duck. Besides if things stay as they are, he'll just waste more of his time down by the lake with me. It's not that I don't like being a duck. Swimming is nice and if flying weren't so hard, it would be fun. But I wish…I wish I could spend time with Fakir. I want to see him smile again. I want to make him smile again."

As the days went by, Ahiru learned more and more sign language. Annie was kind of a slave-driver about it actually. Yet in spite of the never-ending lessons, Ahiru began to realize that there was something of grace, something of ballet in sign language. As they taught Ahiru, Annie's hands spoke just as dance spoke, sometimes with joy, sometimes with sorrow, and at one time or another with all the emotions that lie between the two.

Ahiru also realized over time that she had to become Princess Tutu once more. Perhaps she couldn't turn into the elegant ballerina princess anymore, but she certainly had a job worthy of Princess Tutu before her. She had to save this woman, to help Annie realize that she had to believe in the daughter she had smothered with her domineering personality. The more Ahiru listened to Annie, the more she realized how the mother must have stifled the daughter and all her dreams. Ahiru had to make Annie understand that no matter how much she thought she knew what was best for Helen, that Helen's life was her own. She had to tell Annie to believe in Helen, to let her live her life, and to trust in her to return.

Although she still wasn't very good at it, Ahiru did manage to convey all that to Annie a few weeks later. Somehow, she accepted the fact that Ahiru was a duck and not her daughter returned to her quite easily. It was the rest that she couldn't agree to. That was understandable, really, if you considered how much more it had to hurt her to realize she had been stifling her daughter's life all along.

"But I did all I could for my daughter! I did all I could to take care of you! And now you say you want to leave me just as she left me!" Annie cried.

"Love can't be forced," Ahiru signed back to her gently. "Love isn't gratitude. It's something you have to offer even knowing that you might not get it back." And as she spoke those words, Ahiru realized the truth of them. She was making the same mistake that Annie was. You can't force people to like you and that was exactly what Ahiru was doing to Fakir by making him stay with her because of a promise he had made so long ago. It was that promise which had allowed her to surrender the last piece of Mytho's heart: her Princess Tutu necklace. Fakir kept coming back to the lake every day because he had promised to. Shouldn't Ahiru be thinking of what was best for Fakir? He was squandering away his future, putting everything he might want to do on hold so he could stay with her; never getting on with his life all for her sake. Could it be that _she_ was the reason his smile had vanished? Then, shouldn't she disappear forever for _his_ sake?

But this was not the time for such thoughts: Annie still knelt on the ground beside the bed crying. Softly touching her wings to Annie's tears, Ahiru continued "You have to trust in Helen, and surely she will return."

"It hurts," Annie responded at last. "But I know you're right. I'm sorry to have kept you so long. I suppose you should continue on your way now."

And the next day, that is what Ahiru did. While she may have come one step closer to communicating with Fakir—wait, did he even know sign language?— nothing was that simple anymore. All of Ahiru's certainty about her plan to find a way to turn human again and help Fakir had evaporated, had become overshadowed by doubts now. Maybe she should go back and simply communicate to him somehow that he was free from that wretched promise and that would be enough. Or perhaps the best thing she could do to return his smile was never to return to Kinkan Town.  
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_To be continued..._

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(_1_) from Okazaki Ritsuko's "Morning Grace," opening theme to Princess Tutu, my translation 


	4. Chapter 4

Princess Tutu OVA: Chapter of the Girl

Their story is not quite finished yet: how Ahiru and Fakir move past the endings they find themselves in. All reviews welcome.

Disclaimer: I own neither Princess Tutu nor any of the quoted material.  
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_Once upon a time, there was a boy named Icarus who learned to fly with a pair of wax wings. In his eagerness, he flew too close to the sun although his father had warned him against it. The wings began to melt and as the boy plummeted to his death in the ocean below, _

"_everything turned away  
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may  
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,  
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone  
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green  
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen  
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,  
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on."_

_But perhaps, in this story, there is someone who cares. _(quotation adapted from " Musee des Beaux Arts" by W.H. Auden)

Days passed and although the resolve had been harrowing to make, Fakir found that it was even worse trying to keep it. After the first week, Fakir feared he would lose his sanity to worry. Then he hit on a answer, although that was perhaps too generous a word for his pathetic stopgap solution for assuring himself that Ahiru was in fact alive and well.

His days fell into a regimented routine that would begin with going to class, studiously finishing his work upon reaching home, and then walking to her lake. That is how he thought of it now. There, on the grassy turf beside the water, he would dance as if he were possessed, as if he had to drive out every hint of doubt that may have tried to lodge itself in him. He would dance until sunset, dance until every muscle hurt like hell. And then, just before his body could collapse, he would pull out quill and parchment from his satchel and write the handful of words he allowed himself each day. This tired, his mind and body both felt cleansed, leaving no room for doubt, no room for temptation, and yet even still he would only permit himself two words in order to avoid even the possibility of changing things. This tired, he would merely write the truth, the present reality that Ahiru was actually living without altering anything, just as he had changed nothing but merely narrated Ahiru's story in the final battle against the Raven. And always, it would be merely two words: her name and whatever else would follow:

Ahiru walks…  
Ahiru speaks…  
Ahiru eats…

That last one would invariably make him smile. She was alive and well somewhere in the world and for now that would have to do.

The rest of the world, however, was not content to let him do only that. Felidae cornered him one day after classes and demanded Fakir turn in his written assignments. "You should be my star pupil, Mr. Fakir. Impeccable manners, highest grades in reading and analysis as you would know if you checked the ranking board, and yet you have not handed in a single assignment for the fiction workshops you're taking. Not a single page of creativity to your name. You must understand the creative assignments constitute 50 of your marks. Even though you excel in the rest, without handing in a single thing you can't pass. You must write something, Mr. Fakir."

Fakir tried to sidestep the man, but he was unrelenting and it seemed the fastest way out of the situation was to actually speak to him. "I apologize, Professor. I cannot." Fakir might have no choice but to speak to the annoying teacher, but that didn't mean was going to explain himself. If he wanted to throw Fakir out of classes, that was Felidae's prerogative, but Fakir certainly wasn't going to lay out his life for strangers to dissect.

"Cannot or will not?"

"Both. Fail me if you wish."

But somehow, in that uncanny manner of his old ballet instructor, Felidae understood the unspoken words between them. It unnerved Fakir, really, that this scatterbrained man could have such unsounded, unfathomable depths to him.

Felidae's gold eyes seemed to peer off in the distance and looked as if they were weighing possibilities and impossibilities against each other. "No choice. I see. Very well then, you may continue as you have, for now."

And so Fakir did, his life as static and unchanging as a finished painting: tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow crept in this petty pace from day to day. He had known he would miss Ahiru but he hadn't realized until then that his life would be but a walking shadow without her. (_1_)  
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While Fakir was waiting for Ahiru, Ahiru was waiting too—she just didn't know for what. After leaving Annie's she had wandered into a small village with a duck pond that really ought be just called a glorified puddle and spent her time trying to figure out exactly what she should do. Her earlier course of action had seemed so simple; that certain elements of her plan, such as turning back into a girl, were difficult if not impossible to achieve had not deterred her because once she had a goal in mind (which she had jokingly called it Operation Return Fakir's Smile to herself when she was first flying beyond the walls of Kinkan Town), Ahiru would not let something as trifling as impossibility stop her. But now that the premise behind the goal itself was called into question, Ahiru was left floundering amid her doubts. And worst of all, it wasn't only her plan that she was doubting, but her very self. She had failed Fakir even before she had begun because surely she was the cause of his unhappiness. 

Fakir had a right to start a new life, and maybe the best Ahiru could do was let him. And yet something about this conclusion felt wrong, something about it left her feeling unhappy with the result. So, while trying to figure out just what bothered her about her newly thought-out plan beyond the obvious fact that she would miss Fakir, she decided to stay at the duck pond, even if it was nowhere near as nice as her lake. This pond was smaller, the water murky and overgrown with weeds, but there was a nice park bench near one edge which Ahiru found out was quite popular. Everyday before lunch, an old woman would come at 11:30 sharp as regular as clockwork and feed the ducks while talking aloud—sometimes to the ducks and sometimes to herself—in the way of the elderly. And just as regularly, right after lunch at 12:30 sharp an old man would come and do much the same thing. So, while she wallowed in her misery, she at least had some company to give her the occasional break from her dreary thoughts.

That first morning, the old woman walked over to the bench and settled herself comfortably on it turning to the handbasket she carried and broke of pieces of bread. As she scattered them at the edge of the pond, she spotted Ahiru and exclaimed, "Why, aren't you a new face here!" As there were only a handful of other ducks at the tiny little pond, it wasn't that surprising the old woman had noted Ahiru's presence.

"Well, I'm sure we'll get to know each other very well. I come to this pond everyday. All my kids and grandkids have left the nest, so to speak, and now I have no one to talk to but you ducks. Well, there was Diggory, but…"

After trailing off into apparently bittersweet thoughts to judge from the old woman's expression, she sat there and fed the ducks in silence for over half an hour before leaving. The old man who came after noon to feed the ducks was just as cryptic.

"Ah, I've never seen you here before and I come here every day. Well, I'm sure we'll get to know each other very well. I don't have much family left. Well, there was Thomasin, but…" But instead of trailing off into silence as the old woman had, he continued after gazing thoughtfully at Ahiru. "Hmmm, maybe a series of ducks for my next sculpture. Garden pieces, I think. Bronze? Marble seems too ornate for ducks, yes bronze. Oh, perhaps a duck trailing ducklings! That sounds like just the thing! Thomasin would have loved it…" He too seemed to become absorbed by bittersweet thoughts, but seemed to shake them off visibly and pulling out a sketchpad began drawing.

Ahiru's days continued in this vein, both the old woman and old man coming each day, and each day speaking a bit more about themselves until Ahiru pieced together that the old woman was Thomasin and the old man Diggory! (_2_)

It had come as such a startling revelation that Ahiru had for a minute stopped paddling her webbed feet underwater and almost drowned, when the old woman had said, "And then Diggory told me one day, 'Thomasin, I think I could spend all day here with you just sketching and listening to your voice.' He invited me down to his workshop where he works on all his sculptures. I hadn't felt so alive in decades as I did that day. After my husband died 20 years ago, I thought I'd had my share of romance and it was all over. But after meeting Diggory last year, I felt like I was a young woman again and falling in love for the first time…"

And Diggory had startled her just as much when he had announced one day while sketching, "Yes, I think I will carry through with the 'Make Way for Ducklings' Sculpture. (_3_) Thomasin really would love it. For all that she's a high-born lady, I think she'd be more fond of ducks than swans. I can just imagine the way her eyes would light up on seeing it…I wish I weren't so poor or that she weren't that rich. It stands between us, really. That's why…that's why I decided one day to never see her again.

"You have to understand," he continued, almost pleading as if trying to convince himself of the rightness of his actions. "My workshop almost went out of business last year. That's how I met Thomasin—she commissioned several pieces for the gardens around her manor. It saved me from the brink of starvation. I could see then why people choose to have grandchildren: insurance for when you're old and feeble and can't support yourself. But Thomasin came to me like a godsend. And yet that same commission took her away. I had to stop seeing her. I didn't want her to think I was scheming for her money, that I was some gold-digger after her grandchildren's inheritance. It was for the best. I'm sure of it. So I left without a word; I never went to her gardens again because seeing her even once more, I knew I'd never be able to leave again. She probably only felt pity for me anyway; she never comes to see me anymore."

But for all that his words sounded so sure, Diggory's tone was full of doubt and uncertainty, as if some part of him knew for all his noble sentiments he had probably made the worst mistake of his life in letting her go. Ahiru watched him trudge home that day with his shoulders hunched as if they could not bear the weight of his dejection.

Ahiru received yet another shock the day Thomasin asserted that she had been the one to break it off: "For all that I loved him, I decided one day to stop seeing him. You have to understand," she too pleaded, "I'm sure he just felt beholden to me for my patronage. I loved him, but I'm sure I was forcing him to stay with me out of gratitude. I couldn't chain him down to me out of that. It was for the best. I'm sure of it. And so I left without a word; I never went to his workshop again because seeing him even once more, I knew I'd never be able to leave again. He only ever felt gratitude for me anyway; he never comes to see me anymore" Yet for all her self-sacrificing thoughts, Thomasin looked unsure and unhappy, as if perhaps everything wasn't for the best after all.

Really, this couple was too much. Ahiru's eyes practically goggled at the thought of it. The coincidences alone were unbelievable—they both loved each other, both decided to end the affair without a word of explanation, both thought that the other didn't love them and instead felt forced out of pity or gratitude, and most unbelievably, both of them went to the same duck pond every day to indulge in their unhappy thoughts without realizing that the other frequented the same spot!

"It's too much," Ahiru thought to herself as she idly floated in the pond after Thomasin had lapsed into silence. "And it's too sad to let things be this way when they certainly didn't have to be; when a happy ending is within their grasp, it would be too cruel to let the situation continue in this way. This miscommunication, this trying to do the noble thing, even if you think you're doing it all for someone else, you can end up hurting them terrible if you don't explain everything, if you don't talk to them."

She couldn't let Thomasin and Diggory continue to blind themselves. She had to make them take off their blindfolds at least once and talk everything through, even if in the end they did decide to stop seeing each other. At least then, they would know the truth instead of making themselves miserable over imagined problems.

Making up her mind, Ahiru waded out of the water and tugged at the hem of Thomasin's dress as the old woman got up to leave around noon as she always did. Surprised by the pull, Thomasin looked down to see Ahiru near her feet. "Whatever is the matter? Did you not get enough bread today? I have a bit left here," she said fishing into the basket and settling down for a few more minutes.

But Ahiru knew that Diggory would not arrive for another half hour and she did everything she could think of to keep Thomasin distracted and sitting. She quacked wildly, she even tried sign language although it became apparent rather quickly that Thomasin had no idea what she was doing, and in the end she even tried ballet. When it all failed, Ahiru settled for hopping up onto Thomasin's lap and seating herself there unmovable.

Ahiru was at her wits' end for further delaying tactics, but fortunately at that moment, Diggory arrived, exclaiming as if he could not believe his eyes, "Thomasin!"

She too was overcome by the same disbelief and for a few moments, both of them remained frozen in incredulity looking at each other. "I never thought I'd see you again," Thomasin whispered at last.

And that is when Ahiru realized she was groping about blindly in the dark just like Thomasin and Diggory had been. Sometimes the obvious answer is the right one. The solution of disappearing from Kinkan Town in order to return Fakir's happiness bothered her because she would miss Fakir. More than she had ever missed anyone else, she knew she would miss Fakir if she never saw him again. That was all. That was why it felt wrong. And Fakir, well he was her friend if nothing else. Surely he would miss her too. She could not simply vanish from his life without a word. For her own sake, as well as his.

At that point, Ahiru overheard Diggory say with conviction, "How could you think that when I love you so much!" and began to feel like an eavesdropper. They had no idea she could understand what they thought was a private conversation. Blushing with embarrassment, Ahiru thought, "Well, maybe I should swim to the opposite end of the pond…"

Watching Thomasin and Diggory talk to each other awkwardly, Ahiru thought, "What _would_ someone think if you left them without a word except that you didn't love them at all. And that's exactly what Fakir will think. That I don't like him anymore. As a friend, of course. Right." She laughed sheepishly, uncertain why she was trying to convince herself of that last point.

Ahiru realized then that she had overthought the entire situation with Fakir until she had created a dilemma that might not even be there to begin with. Even assuming Fakir was unhappy because of the promise, she would never know if that were the case unless she returned as a girl and could ask him. And like a complicated tangle of thread that was so easily, so effortlessly undone by tugging at just the right strand, Ahiru's doubts dissipated. She would turn into a girl _somehow_, even if only to explain all her reasoning and ask him why he was so unhappy. She owed him that much at least. And if she were the root of all his sadness, as she suspected she was, then and only then would she vanish without a trace.

Which meant that she was back to her initial plan of action… "Ah, that's so frustrating! I wasted all this time only to end up deciding to do what I had set out to do at the very start! If Fakir ever finds out about all the mental gymnastics I went through over this only to end up at the same conclusion, he'll never let me hear the end of it!" Odd how when she thought of him, even after acknowledging her doubts, it was always under the assumption that they would be together.

Looking over to the bench, she saw Diggory and Thomasin hold hands as the sat beside each other and continued conversing. "That looks like it ended happily. I should go and say goodbye and then be on my way! I've dithered here long enough. There's nothing in this town that'll help me turn back into a girl, and neither Thomasin nor Diggory understand sign language—either that or they don't recognize it coming from a duck—but in any case, I can't ask them if they know of anything. Well, if I wander around, I'm sure I'll find a magic stone or fountain or something…"

Absorbed in her plans, Ahiru swam to the opposite end of the pond and stopped before the bench. As she quacked at the couple, Thomasin and Diggory looked down at her and smiled, Thomasin adding "Thank you. I don't know how you knew. But thank you."

Ahiru quacked a final farewell and took off. She would find a way to turn back into a girl if it was the last thing she did. No, that couldn't be the last thing. She had promised herself and Fakir as she left that little duck pond that she would return to Kinkan Town and Fakir at least one last time. She would not simply vanish.  
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_To be continued..._

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(_1_) adapted from Shakespeare's _Macbeth_

(_2_) a tongue-in-cheek reference to characters from Thomas Hardy's_ Return of the Native_

(_3_) see picture book and bronze sculpture in the Boston Commons by that name


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: As always, I would like to thank all of you who have continued to read my tale thus far and especially those of you who have taken the time to leave feedback. I truly appreciate your comments and suggestions, and look forward to hearing your thoughts on this, the latest chapter.

Princess Tutu OVA: Chapter of the Girl

Their story is not quite finished yet: how Ahiru and Fakir move past the endings they find themselves in. All reviews welcome.

Disclaimer: I own neither Princess Tutu nor any of the quoted material.  
.  
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* * *

_Once upon a time, there was a "__ young composer, working that summer at an artist's colony who had watched her for a week. She was Japanese, a painter, almost sixty, and he thought he was in love with her. He loved her work, and her work was like the way she moved her body, used her hands, looked at him directly when she made amused and considered answers to his questions. One night, walking back from a concert, they came to her door and she turned to him and said, 'I think you would like to have me. I would like that too, but I must tell you that I have had a double mastectomy,' and when he didn't understand, 'I've lost both my breasts.' The radiance that he had carried around in his belly and chest cavity—like music—withered very quickly, and he made himself look at her when he said, 'I'm sorry. I don't think I could.' He walked back to his own cabin through the pines, and in the morning he found a small blue bowl on the porch outside his door. It looked to be full of rose petals, but he found when he picked it up that the rose petals were on top; the rest of the bowl—she must have swept them from the corners of her studio—was full of dead bees." Perhaps their story is in here somewhere as well. (**"A Story About the Body" by Robert Hass**,__ quoted in its entirety)_

One night, just as Fakir drifted off into an exhausted sleep, he felt a niggling sensation in the back of his mind that something was not right. His hand felt odd, almost as if it were numb. Yet he could move it without trouble. Odd. And the awareness of something _not right_ persisted. He would not learn what it was until much later the next evening.  
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Ahiru was thoroughly lost. Not that she had a concrete destination in mind, but at least she had a general idea that she had been heading east of Kinkan Town. Now, she had no idea where she was, and everywhere she looked seemed like the same monotonous woodland she'd been flying over for hours. Well, at least she could see a stream down there. As it was getting dark, she decided to land in a clearing beside the stream instead of flying aimlessly.

Ever the optimist, Ahiru mused "At least I'm getting the hang of this flying thing," as she touched down in the stream. After she had eaten her fill, Ahiru swam in the stream while trying to figure out what to do.

Just as the sun began to set, she heard the sound she least expected to find in such complete wilderness: a lilting tune played on an organ grinder. It was coming from beyond the clearing, and if Ahiru squinted directly into the setting sun, she could see a vaguely human shadow among the tree trunks. Ahiru was nothing if not curious: she decided to explore. She flapped her way out of the stream and headed towards the sound just as the figure in the shadows also began moving towards the center of the little clearing.

Something about that silhouette, something about that melody… "Edel-san!" Ahiru cried out in eager surprise just as her thoughts caught up to her beak. Of course it couldn't be Edel-san; she had died long ago. As the figure stepped into the light, however, Ahiru saw that while she resembled Edel somewhat, it most definitely was not her. The hairstyle was the same, but instead of seagreen, her hair was an iron grey with streaks of white. While her complexion was similar, she wore no make-up at all and her lined face showed her to be quite old. While her garb was equally whimsical, the style was entirely different; her clothes consisted of trailing black lace and uneven swaths of charcoal silk which would almost look like rags were they not such fine materials. All in blacks and greys from her hair to her shoes, the overall effect was a lack of color and vibrancy. No wonder Ahiru had had a hard time distinguishing her from the shadows created by the setting sun. Ahiru would have thought her an older, faded, black-and-white version of Edel-san had the woman's eyes not been so compelling. Metallic in color, they showed a ruthless, bitter streak which set her entirely apart.

Curiously enough, the woman was able to understand Ahiru's quacking. "Edel? Intriguing, but no my name is Lede and I do not believe we have met." And then, as if musing to herself, she continued, "Yes, intriguing sums it up. Despite your current form, you strike me more as girl than duck. Perhaps because your heart speaks equally to animal and human alike if they are kindred. There might yet be profit here."

Ahiru's response to this obscure little speech was an articulate, "Geh!" After Ahiru collected her thoughts a bit more, "You can understand me?"

Lede's calculating grey eyes snapped back to Ahiru at that, "Why of course. An astute businesswoman does not close any doors. Now, how may I be of service?" she inquired smoothly.

"This is becoming more baffling by the second, and there's something about this woman I don't quite trust. Maybe I shouldn't mention anything until I feel out her motives a bit…" Ahiru thought although aloud she merely quacked, "Who are you? Service? What do you mean? I'm just wandering around, seeing the world really…"

"And in the process, surely you've found something you want but cannot have?"

Really, this encounter was becoming stranger and stranger. But something in the woman's words recalled Ahiru's nebulous, unvoiced desire—the one she had been burying deep within herself ever since Drosselmeyer's story had ended—to spend her life as a human girl, beside Fakir. Something you want but cannot have, Lede had said. At last, Ahiru responded, "I kind of knew all along there was something I wanted but couldn't have."

"Then perhaps I can assist you after all. I am a trader in fairytale wishes. I deal in love philters, cursed blades, wart-removal potions, bespelled jewels, elixirs of youth,…" the list seemed endless.

"Ah well, I…warts? I mean no, love potions aren't quite…" This conversation was getting out of hand. And just why was Ahiru considering love potions anyway? Certainly they didn't relate to her Fakir dilemma in any way, shape, or form.

"No need to be coy. Everyone has a desire and a price," the way the woman said that last sentence with a knowing and cynical glint in her sharp lead-colored eyes chilled Ahiru. "Would you like to be human once more?"

That certainly had Ahiru falling back in shock, "H-how did you know!"

"Ah, so my initial business instincts rang true, as always." Lede began to circle Ahiru appraisingly, murmuring as she did so "As I said, everyone and everything has a price. The salient point being in this case, just how much are you willing to tender?"

"Tender? You mean pay?" That brought forth an uncomfortable laugh. "Well, you see, I don't really have any money…and I'm not very good at doing duck things so I can't build you a nest or anything instead…not that you'd want a nest…umm…well…"

Ahiru's ramblings brought forth a pleased but frosty smile on Lede's face, "Pure of heart. That certainly makes the merchandise more lucrative. Since pure-of-heart products are so rare, I shan't attach any strings to the bargain. You won't have to make him fall in love with you within a specific time limit to maintain your form. I'm offering you quite a steal with that—a certain mermaid was not quite so fortunate. (_1_)

"But enough idle chatter." Pulling out a sheaf of papers from somewhere inside the organ grinder, Lede continued, "Now, here is a listing of prices and products. Of course there's a direct relation between cost and quality of merchandise. As you can see, this is the best model" she said holding up an image of Princess Tutu in all her grace and beauty. "Accordingly, its price is the highest: your pure-of-heart soul.

"Now for a sharp drop in the fee you can have this slightly less quality model; I do believe this would be the best bargain for you," Lede continued her pitch without the slightest pause. The next image she held up was somewhere between Princess Tutu and Ahiru the girl—Tutu's elegance, but Ahiru's plainness. "This one would merely cost your heart."

"This last one is a truly inferior model compared to the first two, and I admit I do not care much for the price affixed to it, but it is a standard regulation in the business. As you can see this model lacks both elegance and grace," Lede said holding up an image of Ahiru the girl, "and the price would be your firstborn. (_2_) True the cost is trifling, but surely you would not settle for this when the other two models offer so much more?"

To say that Ahiru was incensed was an understatement. "No, of course I wouldn't trade my soul, heart, or firstborn—and firstborn? What's that all about?—even if I do want to turn into a girl again. If I gave up any of those things, I could never be who I am! I would have the human body, but I wouldn't be Ahiru anymore!"

Lede's eyes widened slightly in surprise, "Yes, there is always that. A price which once paid…But you do not understand how this world works if you think you can receive something for nothing. There is always a price. And at times you pay it even if it _is_ too high," those last words were said so wistfully that the metallic sheen to Lede's eyes, well it didn't soften, but it wasn't quite as sharp.

"I was such a little fool once, with a head full of nothing but nutcrackers and sugar plums. (_3_) Yet that innocence and idiocy was mine and no one else's. But he changed it. Turned into some twisted mindless creature, all I could do was kill that young innocent foolish self for a new one that was hard enough to survive. That was the only price I was offered; though it was too dear to pay I had no choice but to do so. But regret is worse than worthless and I am a woman of my own making now.

"I have not admitted so much in decades. For that, perhaps I can lower yours still further. Your voice then. For that last model.

"I have softened too much, but I shall add, 'Let the buyer beware.'" With that, it seemed as if Lede visibly reconstructed her hard-angled mask and continued, "Think, can you still confess your love to your prince without a voice? Will he still love you without a voice? Perhaps I can interest you in a love philter after all."

Ahiru was struck with equal parts pity and irony then. What had this woman suffered and why? What was the price she had paid that she refused to regret with a strength of will that seemed to harden all the edges about her? It looked as if she would not unbend any further than she had already. But despite these sympathetic musings for this hard woman, Ahiru could not avoid seeing the irony that was so rich it was practically tangible.

Drosselmeyer had offered her a bargain where she could save Mytho, who had seemed to be her prince at the time, by turning her into a girl and in return if she spoke of her love, she would vanish in a flash of light. Now Lede offered her a bargain where she could save Fakir, who might be her prince—no, what was she thinking?—by turning her into a girl in return for her voice. Always, it seemed there would be a price on her speech. Always, it seemed her heart would not be allowed to speak freely.

Lede eyed Ahiru expectantly, and unsure of what to say, Ahiru said the first thing to come to mind, "Oh, he's not a prince, he's a knight. I-I mean that well, I don't think Fakir loves me or anything and I would never want to force him to."

This earned her a scornful look. "A fool you are. And worse fool he. Yet why should you pay such a price for a fool?" The last words had called up some anger within her, some old hatred, some tinge of sorrow, and all of Lede's serrated edges reappeared. She looked ill at ease with all this emotion, as if she had not dredged up such things as feelings in ages. "Proscribed formulations of fairytale contracts be damned! I feel for you and your situation as I have not done in years. Why should you pay? Yes, he can suffer just as well, I am sure."

"Suffer? Fakir? What are you talking about? You can't do anything to Fakir!" This was all happening too fast. Somehow the conversation was spinning even more out of control and Ahiru could not stop it from veering in the ominous direction it seemed intent on.

"I'm an entrepreneur not a philanthropist. And as I said earlier, there is always a price. Nothing comes free.

"That last model then, for your beloved's true desire. Although," Lede mused, "Perhaps that isn't feasible after all—I suspect if I asked for your beloved's true desire we would be back to bargaining for the price of your heart. You drive a hard bargain and I am being pitifully weak. Fine, then. Something he hates yet loves. Yes, that will do. It is a bargain then."

"But wait, I didn't agree! You can't do that! Fakir—"

"You may not have agreed, but some subconscious part of him does, and that is enough." As Lede spoke, a little blue jewel in her hand flared with an intense light briefly. "There. It is done. Your human form for what he hates yet loves.

"Ah, this is unexpected," Lede added, peering closely into the jewel. "And fitting. Poetic justice." She gave one last bitter little smile and melted into the darkening twilight shadows of the trees.

"Wait!" Ahiru cried out behind her. "What did you take? What happened to Fakir? Is he all right? What did you do!"

But Lede had vanished into the forest and all that remained was a last echo of her voice saying, "You might want to follow that stream north. And thank you for your business."

Ahiru despaired. She had to rush back to Kinkan Town as soon as possible so she could make sure Fakir was ok. It must be north along the stream, as Lede had mentioned. Despite the evil trick she had played on Ahiru in the end, Ahiru did not think Lede would lie about that. It did not matter that it was dark. She had to leave _now_.

After Lede vanished, the moon rose and an odd feeling over took Ahiru as she waddled hurriedly beside the stream. Her body seemed to be burning from within. Her back arched, her wings outstretched, her head tilted back. When she opened her eyes again, she looked down at her hands. Her human hands. Fingers. Knuckles. Nails. Cuticles. To have all that again, but at the price of some terrible loss for Fakir. Ahiru could not bear it. She had to return to Kinkan Town right away and set things right.

Now in her yellow puffy shorts, striped knee socks, and white turtle neck, Ahiru ran beside the stream at a furious pace, her red braid lashing behind her as she rushed to get back to Fakir as fast as she could, hoping with all her heart that he was all right.  
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* * *

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That next evening, after dancing himself into exhaustion and then sitting down to write those two allotted words to determine that Ahiru was safe and well as was his daily ritual, Fakir finally realized the source of his unease the night before. He at last understood what had caused the niggling feeling in the back of his mind as well as the odd numbness in his hand. The temptation, the sense of possibility he felt whenever he held quill and parchment were gone.

He could not write.

Or rather, he could no longer spin tales into reality. The power he always felt radiating in his writing hand had dried up and its absence made his fingers feel numb as he was used to the habitual tingling of power he had felt his entire life; that slight prickling in his hand which always reminded him that should he write, horrors might come to life. And now, it was completely and irrevocably gone. He had wished it all away.  
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_To be continued..._

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(_1_) Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid"  
(_2_) Brothers' Grimm "Rapunzel," "Rumpelstiltskin," etc.  
(_3_) Tchaikovsky's _The Nutcracker_


	6. OMAKE

NB: This is **_not_** the real ending. This is merely an omake—a joke, a gag, an extra. The story does _not_ progress in this way. Please wait until the next installment to find out what really happens (I'm making a big deal about this because my beta had a fit when she thought that this was the real ending; she was quite unhappy with me). Although, honestly, I don't see why there aren't more Ahiru/Fakir stories of this persuasion.

**Princess Tutu OVA: Chapter of the Girl ****OMAKE**

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Lede eyed Ahiru expectantly, and unsure of what to say, Ahiru said the first thing to come to mind, "Oh, he's not a prince, he's a knight. I—I mean that well, I don't think Fakir loves me or anything and I would never want to force him to."

This earned her a scornful look. "A fool you are. And worse fool he. Yet why should you pay such a price for a fool?" The last words had called up some anger within her, some old hatred, some tinge of sorrow, and all of Lede's serrated edges reappeared. She looked ill at ease with all this emotion, as if she had not dredged up such things as feelings in ages. "Proscribed formulations of fairytale bargains be damned! I feel for you and the situation you are in as I have not done in years. Why should you pay? Yes, he can suffer just as well, I am sure."

"Suffer? Fakir? What are you talking about? You can't do anything to Fakir!" This was all happening too fast. Somehow the conversation was spinning even more out of control and Ahiru could not stop it from veering in the ominous direction it seemed intent on.

Lede waved a hand, and all of a sudden Fakir appeared before them, still clad in his ballet clothes as if he had been whisked away in the middle of a practice. "Now," Lede continued addressing Ahiru, "why should you have to change your life for him? He can as easily make the sacrifice."

All Fakir managed was a surprised and relieved exclamation of "Ahiru!" followed by an angry "Who are you and just what the hell is going on here?" directed at Lede before his body began to shrink in on itself. His head and legs curled in towards his torso and all of a sudden, Fakir had vanished. Only a heap of clothes remained.

Or so Ahiru thought until the pile began to stir…and then Fakir finally emerged from under it.

Free of the clothes at last, Fakir shook his head as if to clear it and then looked down at himself. He seemed frozen in shock. Ahiru could not blame him. Because instead of a human figure, before her stood a little slate grey duck with black webbed feet and beak. It was unmistakably Fakir—the feathers on his head vaguely resembled the shape of his human hairstyle, his perpetually downturned frowning eyebrows were the same as before, and his razor-sharp green gaze looked as derisive as always although now it was tinted with a blooming panic.

He let out an awkward, disbelieving quack as if the shock were too great to articulate in anything more. Lede smirked and added, "Poetic justice I think. Now flap along lovebirds. I do believe there is a pond down that way."

Although adjusting to an avian life did not come without its trials, they lived quackily ever after.


	7. Chapter 6

A/N: Now beta-ed and revised. No significant changes though.

This, dear readers, is the end. It has been an enjoyable ride for me, and hopefully for you as well. Please let me know if that is the case or not.

I apologize for the delay, but issues in real life reared their ugly heads. I hope this wait doesn't make this last chapter feel too anticlimactic. I also know I'm terrible at writing fluff so it's probably worse than the rest of the story. Most likely, I should have ended at the restaurant scene. Unfortunately, this chapter is un-betaed (my beta won't be able to get back to me until mid-September and I just couldn't wait that long to post it). Please do let me know what you think.

Incidentally, a reviewer asked me about the ages of the characters in this. I find the anime interesting because ages are so nebulous. When Fakir the child discovers Mytho, Mytho looks to be about 20-something. Yet when the story actually takes place, Mytho and Fakir appear to be in their teens. Transformed Princess Tutu looks much older than Ahiru the girl. All we are certain of is that Ahiru, Pique, and Lillie are younger than Mytho, Fakir and perhaps Rue because they call them senpai.

Furthermore, is Kinkan Academy a high school or a college? Students wear uniforms, and yet the live in dorms. I kind of like the ambiguity of the anime. I like to think that the education system in Kinkan is not the same as in our world. Perhaps the Academy is some bizarre cross between a highschool and a college. So in my head, Ahiru is around 15, Fakir Mytho and Rue somewhere near 17. But dear readers, you may choose any age you wish. This fiction, after all, is nothing more than the wish of a fan.

Lastly, thank you for reading. Special thanks to those who put me on their favorites or alerts. Particular gratitude for my dedicated reviewers: **Itsy-Evil-Spiders, doragon no mizu, anmbcuconnfan, Botan and Kurama lover, Akaina, Angel Inu, Manda-chan, Archangel Rhapsody, ****xuri**

those anonymous reviewers I could not respond to individually: **anon., TTF12, Inubaki, CheeseMonkey8, Carrie  
**

and extra special thanks to **Mangaka-chan** for her in-depth critiques.  
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Princess Tutu OVA: Chapter of the Girl

Their story is not quite finished yet: how Ahiru and Fakir move past the endings they find themselves in. All reviews welcome.

Disclaimer: I own neither Princess Tutu nor any of the quoted material.  
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"_Once, in a doorway in Paris, I saw  
the most beautiful couple in the world.  
They were each the single most beautiful thing in the world.  
She would have been sixteen, perhaps; he twenty.  
Their skin was the same shade of black: like a shiny Steinway.  
And they stood there like the four-legged instrument  
of a passion so grand one could barely imagine them  
ever working, or eating, or reading a magazine.  
Even they could hardly believe it.  
Her hands gripped his belt loops, as they found each other's eyes,  
because beauty like this must be held onto,  
could easily run away on the power  
of his long, lean thighs; or the tiny feet of her laughter.  
I thought: now I will write a poem,  
set in a doorway on the Boulevard du Montparnasse,  
in which the brutishness of time  
rates only a mention; I will say simply  
that if either one should ever love another,  
a greater beauty shall not be the cause."__  
This is most certainly their story._ (_**"Boulevard du Montparnasse" by Mary Jo Salter**, quoted in its entirety)_

Out of his own selfishness, Fakir had failed Ahiru. He had been determined to find a way to harness his power to spin tales into reality. Damn it! That was the only reason he had even gone back to school. He had to find a way to write a story that would neither endanger nor control so that Ahiru could become human should she wish to be so. And yet, weary of carrying such a burden and scared of the monsters he might unleash with his quill, he had wished away his only means of accomplishing his goal. He knew, intrinsically that it was somehow his fault; that he had been too weak. The responsibility had been too heavy and he like a spineless idiot had buckled under its weight when neither his lessons nor the library had yielded an answer.

No matter how hard he tried, he could no longer feel the tingle of power in his arm. Ahiru was gone. She might never come back. All because he had failed to act. He sat morosely at the shore of the lake, unable to move.  
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Ahiru journeyed for hours on end, refusing to stop even when her tired body wanted nothing more than to collapse. Nothing mattered more than getting back to Kinkan Town and Fakir to stave off the disaster that she was sure had occurred. As dawn colored the sky, she saw the walls of Kinkan Town rising before her. They had never seemed a more welcome sight.

She circled the town until she reached a gate and was grateful that some small measure of luck was with her—it was the gate closest to the most likely places she would find Fakir: the lake and to Charon's house. As she leaned against the massive gate to catch her breath, her gaze caught on a poster. It was the most hideous drawing of a bird she had ever seen—if in fact it _was_ a bird. Ahhiru sweatdropped in disbelief as she realized on reading the description just who had made the poster and for whom. "Fakir really has a gentle heart for all he tries to deny it," she mused as she prepared to sprint the rest of the way to the lake, then Charon's place, and then the town square in her search.

There was a figure hunched by the lake shore, almost hidden by the mists. He was sitting in the same spot he always did. As if waiting for her. He was facing the water. He hadn't seen her yet. There were so many things to say, so many worries, so many apologizes running through her head, she could not speak. Finally, she walked up beside him and said with a quiet smile, "I'm home."

Fakir whirled around, almost falling into the lake in his shock. "Ahiru." That was all he managed before clutching onto her as if grasping hope, as if grasping something he imagined would vanish if he didn't hold on.

She couldn't breathe. Was Fakir trying to strangle her? "Fakir" she managed to croak at last "No. Air." When that produced no relief for her respiratory system, Ahiru tried "Can't breathe. Let go."

"You'll disappear in a flash of light if I let go," he mumbled into her hair although the suffocating pressure eased a little.

"Fakir, you aren't making any sense! What do you mean a flash of—oh no! It was your brain, wasn't it? Lede took your mind, didn't she! No wonder you're talking nonsense! Something you loved but hated! I'm so sorry, Fakir, you're stupid and it's all my fault!"

At that, Fakir did push her away, cutting short her wails. He held her at about arm's length, peering critically into her eyes. "If anyone's gone crazy, I think it's you. Just what are you babbling on about?"

"You're the one who's babbling! I—"

Ahiru was interrupted by the loud protests of her own stomach. While she scratched the back of her head with one hand and laughed sheepishly, Fakir without further ado, grabbed her other arm and began dragging her away from the lake.

"Hey! Wait—where are we going? There's so much I need to tell you! Something terrible's happened—"

Fakir looked back at her disdainfully. "Where do you _think_ we're going? It's bad enough I'll have to put up with your nonsense, I don't want to argue with your stomach as well."

"But where are we going?!"

"Home," he said at last, exasperated. Something in that word warmed Ahiru. Home. "To feed that bottomless pit you call a stomach." That warm feeling turned into a warmer feeling: anger.

"Well, no need to be a jerk about it. I don't know why you're in such a bad mood anyway. You haven't been this mean since we first met!"

Fakir had been pulled in too many contradictory emotional directions in a handful of minutes. From despair to hope to disbelief to unimaginable relief and happiness, all of which he had been trying to keep clamped down beneath a mask of irritation and indifference after his initial, unthinking indulgence in sentimentality when he had embraced Ahiru. And now she dared to speak as if she didn't understand at all the magnitude of what he had gone through. He glared at her in disbelieving anger. "You idiot!" he shouted incensed. "Of course I'm angry! How could you disappear for a month and a half like that? Didn't you think I'd worry? Didn't you think I'd miss you?"

Finally, he looked away. "Forget about it. Let's get some food," he muttered at last.

"Fakir." Her voice full of regret, wishing she could take back her hasty words. "Come on," she said taking her cue from him. "There's a really good restaurant out here in the woods."

Now it was her turn to drag him through the trees until a quaint little building with a placard reading "Ebine" appeared as if it had sprouted up along with the plants. A robust woman who looked a little too enthusiastic for Fakir's taste greeted them at the door. "Ah," she said. "Breakfast for two? Would you like a table outside on this lovely morning?" As the woman walked away, she hesitated, looking back at Ahiru. Something tugged at her memories. An image of a girl, but it was all so vague and far away in her memories. Nonetheless, Ebine decided to give them the best table.

As Ahiru worked through the mountain of food on the table (blueberry pancakes, orange juice, cinnamon rolls, milk, and fruit salad for her; eggs, toast and coffee for Fakir), she told him everything: from her lessons in sign language to her stint as matchmaker to her fateful encounter with Lede.

Fakir listened in silence, sitting up a little straighter when Ahiru told about Lede's forced bargain. When she finished, he sighed "Poetic justice. Well, she got that right." It was his turn to fill Ahiru in beginning with Drosselmeyer's journals to his fear in taking up writing once more to losing his powers. "It's fitting, isn't it?" he concluded. "That a woman who suffered under the power of someone who spun tales into truth should grant the wish of a girl in a similar situation by taking away that power? And somehow, for all her bitterness, I don't worry as much about her having that power than I do about Drosselmeyer."

"She seemed so sad. I don't think she'd use it to twist around reality either. But Fakir, is it really ok? That you can't spin tales anymore? After all, Lede said 'loved but hated.' You lost something you loved because of me."

"You don't understand at all, do you? I only wanted that power so I could help you. So that you could be human again. It doesn't matter anymore. You know, despite all your rambling, you didn't answer my question. Why did you leave in the first place?"

"I…I wanted to turn human again. I thought I'd find a way to do it out there in the world. So that…so that I could find a way to bring back your smile."

"I don't think any of that made sense. But that doesn't matter either." Fakir smiled softly. "I'm glad you're back."

It was back! Fakir was smiling again! A smile that reached even his eyes until the iciness in their green depths became as gentle as leaves. And she had no idea what had brought it back. "Don't you?" a small part of her asked. "I think you do know. He brought back your smile and you brought back his."

"I'm glad to be back too."

The rest of the morning was spent in re-enrolling Ahiru into Kinkan Academy. Well more like enrolling as no one seemed to remember her. Tuition, of course, was a problem as Ahiru had no money or credit history at all since she used to be a duck, but she was able to enter under a teaching scholarship (she was too bad at ballet to get a dance scholarship). She was assigned her old attic room as none of the paying students would want it. When Ahiru saw it, she felt tears in her eyes. She could once again have all that she had missed of her old life, all that had become a part of her. It was furnished exactly as before, with a red old-fashioned lamp that gave off rosy light on the desk. Pique and Lillie lived on the floor below.

Fakir cross-registered in the Kinkan Academy for ballet so he could join her dance classes. She was still the same clumsy Ahiru, never quite as good as him but because he wasn't majoring in dance, he could choose whatever partner he wanted. Even someone from the apprentice class.

After taking care of the administrative details, Ahiru and Fakir walked to Charon's house. As they came closer to the house, Fakir became more and more uncomfortable. He was unsure how to explain Ahiru's existence to Charon; he was even more unsure as to how he would explain his relationship to her. As Charon greeted them both, looking curiously at Ahiru, Fakir tried to stumble through an introduction. "Charon, this is…she's—I mean I—"

A wide smile covered Charon's face as his stuttering son slowly turned red before him. It looked like Fakir had finally found the hope to lift the despair that had descended upon him. "I think I understand." In his relief, Charon was unable to resist teasing. "I knew my parental instincts had it right from the start. It was all over a girl."

Ahiru, seemingly immune to embarrassment, either that or entirely ignorant to the undercurrents in the conversation, smiled brightly at Charon and said, "Hello, Fakir's dad. Nice to meet you!" She and Charon got on really well because after all, he had nothing but gratitude and love for the girl who had brought hope to his son's life.  
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* * *

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As the semester progressed, Ahiru felt she had never been happier. She could dance again, even if she wasn't that good at it. She could chat with Pique and Lillie, even if they still seemed to inhabit a different dimension than she did. And best of all, she could spend time with Fakir—and that statement didn't need any qualifier at all. Even when he was jerk, Ahiru was happy to be in his company. They were frequently seen together and it became natural for her to have dinner at Charon's as if she were part of the family.

Fakir would cook and Ahiru would help until she bungled enough that she was relegated to setting the table and doing the dishes. Charon would join them as they sat down to a good meal and conversation that was often peppered with arguments between Ahiru and Fakir.

"The term's drawing to close, isn't it?" Charon asked.

"Yeah. Graduation's still a few years away but they want us to start thinking about what we want to do in the future—jobs and such," Ahiru answered as she passed the potatoes.

"Oh? Have you two made any future plans yet?"

"I kind of have a rough idea, but…" Ahiru became absorbed in her meal.

"Have you considered getting married?" Charon continued innocently.

"M-m-married?!" Ahiru and Fakir both stuttered in a surprisingly accurate, albeit unintentional, impression of a certain instructor.

"I—I think I'm going to become a teacher!" Ahiru announced to prevent Charon asking any more awkward questions, all the while pounding furiously at her chest to dislodge the food that seemed to have gotten stuck their in her surprise. "I've been taking introductory classes in the art and music schools for that teaching scholarship requirement. I love ballet but I'll probably never be good enough at any one thing to teach at Kinkan Academy, but maybe younger kids? I think we'd get along really well."

"Grade school?" Fakir mused. "It could work. You even think at their level sometimes. Anyway, teaching will suit you."

"Hey, I'd watch what I say if I were you!" Ahiru shot back. "At least I'll be making an income, Mr. Penniless Artiste. You'll have to respect me since I'll be the breadwinner."

"Still fond of bread so much. Can't expect a duck to change all her feathers though, I suppose," Fakir taunted in response.

"Hmph. Anyway, what did you mean teaching would suit me?"

"Isn't that what you did all the time as Princess Tutu? Teaching people to see the truth? With all that practice, you must have developed a knack for it by now."

She looked at him blankly for a few minutes, before finally venturing uncertainly, "Is that a compliment or an insult?"

"Only you'd be confused about such a thing…"

"Jerk."

It seemed that they would continue bickering happily ever after. And you know what? They did.  
.  
.  
.  
_Finis_

* * *


End file.
